


Debrief

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-ep for "Ethon", season 8.  Cam gets debriefed by Jack O'Neill.  He's not off scot-free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debrief

The beer was crap. Cam didn't feel like drinking it anyway, not there in Jackson's office, with the ghosts of all those Caledonians sitting in the corners, staring at him. Cam wanted to ask about Jackson's friend Jarrod, but thought better of it. The guy hadn't seemed the type to cut and run.

"Well," Cam said after a few awkward minutes, as the beer grew warm in his hand. "Guess I'll get on home. You okay?"

"I'm not dead," said Jackson, with a strained smile. "Everything else--" he shrugged, looking away. "Take it easy, Colonel."

"Yeah, you too," said Cam, figuring he wasn't yet close enough friends with Jackson to talk about the price of his not-deadness. Not yet; maybe not ever.

He didn't go home, though. There was a bar down the street from his apartment that Cam had stopped into a couple times, usually on game days. It wasn't a game day, but there were fourteen unpacked boxes in his living room and millions of people had died on a planet three hundred light-years away. Sitting at home alone wasn't an option.

There were only a couple of people sitting in the dimness when Cam pushed through the door; it was early afternoon, after all. The tv was tuned to some cable news channel. Another suicide bomber in Bagdad; seventy-three dead this time, and twelve Americans.

Thirty-seven crew members were still on the Prometheus when it blew. Cam had seen their faces on the bridge, in the head, in the fighter bay; now he could add the faces of Minister Chaska, that nice girl who'd escorted them to the the Minister's headquarters, the Caledonian mechanic who'd swiped an envious hand down the wing of Cam's F302.

The first pint went down smoothly; Cam lingered over the second one, trying to follow the complex news report about an insider trading scandal.

"Figured it out yet?"

Someone sat down in the next chair, placing a pint of something pale and foamy on the table between them. "I missed this," said General O'Neill, picking up the glass and giving it a long pull. "All you can get in D.C. is that microbrew stuff; nobody's got Coors on tap."

Cam blinked, looked around the bar where the four or five other customers were all staring into their beers, and then back across at, yes, General O'Neill. It was the first time Cam had seen O'Neill out of uniform: he was wearing a battered leather jacket over a green shirt. He looked like he was on vacation, but Cam suspected this wasn't a social visit.

"Sir," he said stiffly, resisting the urge to sit up in his chair. He was off-duty for the first time in 96 hours: he had a right to slouch. "How'd you know I was here?"

O'Neill ignored him. Cam figured the Pentagon probably had all of the SG teams under surveillance; it made sense, with the risk of alien infiltration so high. He shifted uncomfortably; he didn't have that much to hide, but.

The beer in the general's glass sloshed as he tilted it to the side, watching the bubbles. "You said you read all the reports, Mitchell." He looked up, eyes sharper than Cam expected.

"Yes, sir, I did."

Cam had heard so many stories about Jack O'Neill; he was legendary among those fortunate few with SGC clearance. Most of the stories focused on his luck, his absolute loyalty to his people, and his completely inappropriate sense of humor. What they didn't mention, Cam already knew, was the way the mind behind that blandly genial face was always calculating risks, working the odds. O'Neill had the world's best sense of when to go with luck and when to spit fate in the eye: and if he thought you'd made a strategic mistake, you damned well shut your mouth and listened to the man.

"Mitchell, how did you read all of that and never learn how to handle Daniel?"

What? "Sir?" Cam looked over his shoulder uneasily; they were in gross violation of every security regulation. On the other hand, this _was_ General O'Neill; Cam could hardly refuse to talk to him.

O'Neill sighed theatrically and took another drink of beer. "Rule one: just because Daniel wants to do something doesn't make it a good idea. See--well, just about every damned mission, actually." He frowned, as if reminded of something, and then continued. "Rule two: don't ever let Daniel go off on his own."

Cam's hands were sweaty. He looked around the bar again, but the mid-afternoon rush was over; they were alone except for the bartender, who was working on a crossword puzzle. "With all due respect, sir--"

"Ah!" A long finger stopped him from putting his foot in it. "When he goes off alone, he gets himself killed, Mitchell. Am I right?"

The reports for the Kelowna mission had been particularly grim; Cam had had to close the folder when he got to the doctor's description of Jackson's condition. He'd seen enough medical files to read between those lines. It was amazing the man had survived--but then he hadn't, had he?

Jackson had been so insistent; and Sam had backed him up. "Yes, sir." That first beer wasn't sitting well.

"As for that stunt with the Prometheus--" O'Neill's voice was disturbingly dry, as if he weren't speaking of a multi-billion dollar vessel and several dozen lives. "Care to explain your thinking there, Colonel? And yeah, I've spoken to your boss. He's not the one you have to worry about answering to."

That pissed Cam off. "I've been to see Colonel Pendergast's wife, sir."

"Good." O'Neill's face didn't soften, although he nodded. "So Daniel gave you the song-and-dance about diplomatic solutions, and Carter said she was sure she was right about the station's defensive capabilities. And off you went."

Fuck. Cam couldn't meet the general's eyes. This was _SG-1_, and they had a hundred times the field experience than he did--maybe a thousand, when it came to Teal'c. What the hell should he have done?

"Sir." Cam pushed his beer across the table. This was certainly the most unconventional debriefing he'd ever had. "I trusted their intuition, sir, and General Landry approved the mission. Doctor Jackson had been there before--"

"--and damned near got himself killed," O'Neill pointed out neatly before swallowing the last of his beer. "You think that makes his judgment sound?"

"Sir, I know, but--"

"You've been damned lucky, Mitchell. You're doing pretty well. But this time--" O'Neill shook his head. "I helped start a few wars, but I don't think I ever destroyed an inhabited planet." His voice was light, but his eyes weren't.

"You came damned close, though," Cam pointed out, daringly.

"But I didn't," countered O'Neill, his face hardening. "Look," he continued, after a long moment in which he stared mournfully into his empty glass. "You've got the goods, or I wouldn't have given the team to you. But you can't let them--" He hesitated, as if reluctant to finish the thought.

All the stories said that SG-1 was very close; closer than a field team ought to be, really.

"Run the show, sir?"

"Close enough," said O'Neill, with a bleak smile. "They've got the experience, but you've got to drive the car."

"Pendergast had three daughters," said Cam after a moment. His wife had been stoic; but Cam couldn't breathe easily until he was two counties away. "Why haven't I been relieved of command?"

"Ferretti's back's gone out again, Redfield's got no imagination, and Dixon's certifiable. But don't think I haven't thought of it."

Ouch. But Cam felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease, anyway. "When we came out of hyperspace, sir, the station didn't have its shields up yet, but we couldn't get Doctor Jackson. They'd removed his transponder--"

"I read the report, Mitchell." O'Neill pushed his chair back and stood up. He threw a couple of crumpled bills down; they darkened in the pool of condensation on the sticky surface of the table. "You should have fired right away. Regardless."

That would have doomed Jackson. "Sir, yes, sir, but--" Cam stood up as well, needing more answers. God, O'Neill had done it all, he could tell him--

The general pushed open the bar door; the sun flooded in, silhouetting him against the daylight outside. He held the door open and turned back towards Cam, his face in shadow, unreadable. "Mitchell." O'Neill's voice was pained and sympathetic. "You shouldn't have waited. Don't make my mistakes. You're not me. Make your own."

The door swung shut with a bang.


End file.
